Sins of Summer

by Dorothy Garlock

  “Wiley, what more can happen to the Callahans? Milo has gone crazy, Steven was ambushed and now this with Louis. I can’t believe he forced himself on that woman and then tried to kill her. It’s not like him.”

  “I’d not a thought it, but don’t worry yore mind with it, Dory. Ya’ll know all the ins and outs when we get there.”

  Dory dreaded facing the townspeople. Although not as much as it had a day or two earlier, her face still showed signs of the beating she had taken. But her looks were a small concern compared to the disgrace of the family name if the marshal and Mr. McHenry were right about what Louis had done. Minutes after Hugh had broken the news, Dory had choked down a terrible suspicion, and until now she had not dared to voice it.

  “Wiley, could it be that Louis is the one who killed those other women?”

  “Don’t be a-jumpin’ the gun, Dory.” Wiley spit over the side of the wagon and slapped the reins against the backs of the team.

  “I’d not be surprised at Milo doing something like that.”

  “Sometimes what’s on the inside of a man don’t show up on the outside,” Wiley said thoughtfully as he flapped the reins again.

  Jeanmarie was excited. She called out to James and to Papa, who were riding behind the wagon as they had done the day they went to the Malones. Over the last few days the child had stopped calling Ben Odette’s papa. Neither Ben nor Odette seemed to mind, and Dory gave up trying to think of a way to correct her.

  When they reached town, people were gathered in small groups along the boardwalks on each side of the street. They turned to watch the Callahans come into town. Their eyes on her made Dory’s heart thud and goose-bumps climb her arms. Several lifted a hand in greeting; others stared with accusing expressions on their faces.

  Wiley turned the wagon at McHenry’s store, then turned again to stop in the space behind it. Hugh had said that Louis had been taken to the McHenrys’ sprawling living quarters. Mag McHenry was the nearest thing to a doctor within twenty-five miles. She lanced boils, set bones, stitched cuts and dug out bullets.

  James lifted Dory down from the wagon seat, and the two of them went to the door. McHenry was there to meet them.

  “Is he—?” Dory left the question hanging.

  “He be alive still,” McHenry said bluntly. “James, can I be havin’ a word with ye?”

  “Stay here, Dory,” James said, and followed McHenry into the building.

  Confused, Dory sought Ben’s eyes. He had Jeanmarie in his arms and Odette stood close to them. Suddenly she felt as weak as a baby. She wanted to go to him and stand within the curve of his arm, lean on his strength.

  Ben saw her take a deep, quivering breath. Wordlessly, he looked at her and admired the proud way she held her head even though her breasts rose and fell with each breath, telling him that she was not as calm as she pretended to be.

  When she removed her wide-brimmed hat, the bruises on her cheeks and around her lovely green eyes were prominent against the creamy skin of her face. Even in her drab skirt and shirtwaist and in shoes that had seen many years of wear, she was magnificent. This morning when he had kissed her, he had caught the scent of breakfast, of soapsuds and the pure, sweet, musky smell of woman. Just thinking about it caused his flesh to ignite and his nostrils to quicken.

  “Ben—?”

  “Don’t worry about the baby, honey. Odette and I will take care of her, and we’ll be nearby if you need us.”

  “I do need you,” Dory said softly. “All of you.”

  “Dory,” James said from the doorway. “McHenry tells me that Louis is out of his head and that you might not want to hear his ramblings.”

  “Poo! I’ve been listening to his ramblings all my life. He is Papa’s son, and we should be with him during his last hours on earth regardless of how we feel about him or he about us.” Dory looked past James to McHenry. “Mr. McHenry, this is Ben Waller and his daughter, Odette.”

  “Howdy, mon. We be hearin’ of ye.” The two men shook hands. “Come in. Be making yerself ta home. The young lassie can be lookin’ ‘bout in the store an’ findin’ goods fer her papa to buy—huh?” McHenry said with a twinkle in his eyes.

  Just inside the door was a small room McHenry had set up for Mag to do her doctoring. He waited until Ben and Odette had gone down the hall toward the store before he opened the door. Mag was bending over the cot where Louis lay. She turned when they entered and Dory saw Mag’s shocked expression when she saw her face. Her dark eyes went from Dory to James and back to Dory.

  “How be ye, Dory? It’s been a while since ye been to town.”

  “Hello, Mag,” Dory said softly. “How is he?”

  “I ain’t be knowin’ what keeps him a breathin’.”

  At that moment Louis tried to rear up, and Dory could see that a band of cloth across his hairy, naked chest held him down. There was another across his legs. A blood-soaked cloth covered his stomach. He was writhing in agony, his arms straining at the strap that held him down. His gasps for breath were loud in the quiet room. Dory went to the side of the cot. Louis’s eyes opened and he stared up at her.

  “Ya goddamn bitch! Ya come—”

  “Of course. James and I both are here.”

  “Then get on… an’ ride, ya goddamn… slut!”

  Dory backed away. “James, what does he mean?”

  James glanced quickly at McHenry. “Sis, he’s out of his head. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

  “Jean!” Louis yelled. “Ya gived it to that red-headed bastard an’ to that ol’ man, but ya warn’t givin’ nothin’ to me. I knew what ya was doin’ when I heard them bedsprings a squeakin’. Ya ain’t nothin’ but a… whore nohow!”

  Dory and James stood side by side and stared down at the man on the cot. Dory willed herself not to faint at the sight of the red blood that soaked the cloth on his belly and the bloody froth that came from the corner of his mouth.

  Louis lifted his head off the pillow. “I swore I’d kill ya an’ I did!” Hate-filled eyes stared up at Dory. “Ya goddamn Malone bitch!” His voice was filled with rage. He tried to spit at her. “I choked the life outta ya. Ya begged, but I choked till yore tongue hung out. Ha… ha… ha—” His dry cackle was the most evil sound Dory had ever heard. “Ya give that old man what ort a been mine an’ I killed ya for it.”

  James touched Dory’s arm. “Do you want to go?”

  Slowly she shook her head. Louis was talking about her mother. He had carried that hatred all these years. Was it hatred or love? He was killing her mother each time he had killed one of those poor women.

  “Oh, James, I never dreamed he hated us so much.”

  “Jean!” Louis shouted, his eyes wild. “Why’d ya come back for?” He tried to rear, then fell back and closed his eyes. “Jean, you’re so… pretty—” he cried hoarsely. A few seconds later his eyes flew open and he looked at Dory with pure hatred on his face. “Ya goddamn bitch!” he snarled, and for a moment there was recognition in his eyes. “I’ll choke the life outta ya and that blasted Malone brat.” Blood covered his lips and his lids fluttered down. “Jean, why’d ya have ta—?” Bubbles came from his mouth.

  Dory turned her face away, and when she looked back, his eyes were closed and he lay still. Minutes dragged by. Mag went to the head of the cot, felt for the pulse in his neck, then raised his eyelid. It remained open.

  “He’s gone,” she said, as she closed the staring eye and laid a cloth over Louis’s face.

  With his hand against Dory’s back, James guided her out of the room. The McHenrys followed and closed the door.

  “Don’t ye be fearin’ that what he said ’bout yer mather will be prattled ‘bout. He be goin’ on like that since Mel, not wantin’ to look after him, but not bein’ willin’ to kill him fer what he done to Clara, brought him here.”

  “He killed those other poor women, didn’t he?” Dory asked.

  “’Tis what he be sayin’ he did.”

  “Clara knew him or she
’d not have let him in that late.” James turned to Dory to explain. “She has a room above the saloon.”

  “Someone would have seen him go up there.”

  “Not if he used the outside stairs.”

  “Mel would not be thinkin’ ’bout the other women or he’d a throwed him to the hogs.”

  “The marshal knows?” James asked.

  “He heard Louis rantin’. Mel had given Clara the derringer to protect herself knowin’ they be a mon killin’ whores.”

  “I knew he hated me and considered me a loose woman. I wonder why he didn’t kill me?” Dory thought of the many times she had been alone in the house with Louis and began to feel a chill.

  “We not be knowin’ how a mon’s mind be workin’,” Mag said. “To be sure he’d a harmed ye, is my way a thinkin’.”

  “We’re obliged to you and Mrs. McHenry, Mac,” James said. “Tally up a bill and I’ll see that it’s paid. Sis, you stay here and I’ll go see about a box.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait for Milo? He’s more kin than we are.”

  “We’ll bury him at sundown whether Milo is here or not,” James said firmly. “I’ll go talk to the preacher. I doubt there’s anyone in town that’d help bury him. Ben and I will dig a hole, but not near Ma and Pa.”

  Head bent and shoulders slumped, James went out the back door and McHenry down the hallway to the store.

  “Ye don’t have to be goin’ in the store, Dory,” Mag said when she saw Dory’s eyes follow McHenry.

  Mag McHenry had been the rock Dory had clung to after her father died. During the days following Mick’s death and when she realized she was to have a child, Mag McHenry had been Dory’s only friend. She had come to the homestead and delivered Jeanmarie and stayed to help Dory through the difficult days that followed. Dory went to her now and put her arms around her.

  “Dear friend, you must be wondering what happened to my face.”

  “The marshal be tellin’ the McHenry it was Milo who hurt ye.” Mag clicked her tongue. “And ‘bout yer Mr. Waller killin’ Sid Hanes.”

  “Milo was the mean one. I wouldn’t have been so surprised it he had been the one who killed those women. It’s hard to believe it of Louis. He kept that hate bottled up all those years.”

  “Ach! It’s sad. George Callahan be a fine mon, but he sired two sorry sons to my way a thinkin’. It seems Louis ha’ been overly fond a Jean, and he bein’ a lad and all.”

  “The Callahan name will sure enough be held up to scorn now. Papa doesn’t deserve that.”

  “That be so, lass. Would ye be wantin’ to see Steven?”

  “James said that he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s here. Not even the marshal. Don’t you think that’s kind of strange?”

  “He be scared, lass.” Mag clicked her tongue as was a habit of hers. “The mon be more dead than alive when he came to our door. That marshal be snoopin’ round an’ found Steven’s horse in the barn. A bullet dug a hole in the flank of the poor beast. I think he be knowin’ that the McHenry not be tellin’ all.”

  “Will Mr. McHenry get in trouble?”

  “The McHenry has broke no law.”

  As they talked, they had walked a few steps to anotner door. Mag paused and looked up and down the hallway before she took a key from her pocket and unlocked the door. They went inside and Mag relocked the door.

  Steven lay on the bed, his head elevated by two fluffy pillows. The planes of his face were sharp and boney; his mustache, usually so neatly trimmed, was long and scraggly, as was his hair. Dory hurried to the side of the bed.

  “Steven, my goodness. When James came home and told us what happened, I couldn’t believe that someone would ambush you.”

  “Us. Who else did he tell?” Steven asked anxiously.

  “Only me, Ben and Wiley. We haven’t said a word to anyone. Louis is gone, Steven. He died right after James and I got here.”

  “I could say I’m sorry, Dory, but it would be a lie. McHenry told me what Louis did.”

  “Are you as shocked as I am that Louis was a murderer?”

  “In a way. But I sensed something sinister in Louis after Jean died. He changed, and it seemed that all he thought of was his hatred for Chip Malone.”

  “But Mama loved Papa.”

  “I know she did. Louis was consumed with a deep-seated anger and was warped where Jean was concerned.”

  “James says we’ll bury him at sundown. Steven, so much has happened.” Dory told him briefly about Odette being taken and that James had killed the two men who had taken her. “I don’t know what will happen when Ben and James see Milo.”

  “If ye want ta be stayin’, Dory, I best be seein’ to me brood.” Mag spoke from the end of the bed.

  “I should go and let Steven rest. James and I will be back. This morning he said we’d spend the night at the hotel.”

  “Dory,” Steven called before she reached the door. “Waller beat hell out of Milo for what he did to you. I never saw a man take a more vicious beating.”

  Dory took a few steps back toward the bed. “He wants to marry me, Steven, and take me away from here. He doesn’t want my shares in the company.”

  Steven chuckled, then winced. “Did you think the only reason a man would want you was for that damn stock?”

  Dory answered his grin. “I guess I heard it so often, I believed it.”

  “Marry your man if you want to, Dory. But don’t leave just yet. Wait until I’m on my feet.”

  “Why, Steven Marz, I’d not think of leaving until you’re on your feet,” she scoffed. “Mama would look down from heaven and be disappointed in me.”

  “Ye be drinkin’ that broth, mon, else I’ll be takin’ a stick to yer backside,” Mag threatened.

  “It’s cold, Mag,” Steven complained.

  “’Tis yer own fault. ‘Twas hot when Iris brought it. He be better, Dory. He be up to bellyachin’.”

  “Ye better be takin’ care, Mag McHenry,” Steven said, using her Scottish brogue. “I be likin’ ye too much ‘n’ be fightin’ McHenry for ye.”

  “Ach, me darlin’ mon, ye’re as full a blarney as a Irishmon.” Mag’s eyes were twinkling as she ushered Dory out the door. “I had feared he’d die while I was diggin’ the bullet out of him. It is good he be feelin’ up to doin’ some joshin’.”

  “He’s usually so serious. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard him tease before.”

  At the door leading into the store, Mag paused. “Ye know, lass, the news be sweepin’ the town like wild fire when folks be seein’ yer poor face.”

  “I know, Mag. But I’ve done nothing wrong and I don’t feel I should hide. What happened was done to me. The person who did it should feel the shame. If someone should ask, which they won’t, I’ll tell them who beat me.”

  Mag chuckled. “Ye be more like yer mather every day.”

  “You couldn’t say anything that would please me more.”

  Dory longed to tell Mag about Ben and the new happiness that had come to her. But there was no time. As she followed her into the store, the first thing she saw was Ben, arms crossed, one shoulder against the wall. His head was bent and he was watching as Odette worked with a button hook on the soft kid shoes she had put on Jeanmarie.

  “Mama! Look! Papa buy me new shoes.”

  Dory looked up at Ben and joyous tremors fluttered inside her.

  “Oh, Ben. Red shoes?”

  “She likes them.” His face was wreathed with smiles and his eyes danced with laughter.

  Ben and James climbed up and out of the hole they had dug and sank down on the grass near Wiley. The old man was whittling on a stick with his pocketknife. A chaw of tobacco bulged his cheek.

  The quiet was absolute.

  “Not a damn soul offered to help dig this hole,” James said, wiping his forehead on his sleeve. A slight breeze felt cool on his face.

  “Folks are pretty well worked up over this.”

  “I don’t blame them for that, but hell, they don�
��t have to act like the rest of us Callahans have smallpox.”

  “What’d the preacher say?” Wiley asked.

  “Nothing much. Said he’d read a scripture if we wanted. I told him Dory’d want to do it proper.”

  “The marshal was in the store asking a couple of fellows about a horse in McHenry’s barn that had been creased by a bullet.” Ben took off his hat, placed it on the ground beside him, and mopped his forehead with a kerchief. “He said McHenry told him it wandered in. He asked who it belonged to and if it was saddled. He seemed to be a hell of a lot more interested in that horse than in Louis.”

  “Maybe he’s got a line on something. He said he wanted to talk to Steven about what happened the night Milo and Sid came to the house. I don’t know what the hell for. He talked to Tinker.”

  “When I told him about it the day he stopped at the house, he seemed to think that as long as Sid shot first and either Marz or Tinker backed me on it, I’d be in the clear.”

  “There isn’t any reason for him to hang around now that Louis confessed to the killings.”

  “I wonder why he didn’t kill Dory. He had plenty of opportunity.” The thought tightened Ben’s nerves and he ground his teeth each time he thought of it.

  “It’s somethin’ we’ll never be knowin’,” Wiley answered. “When he’d go off for a day or two, ever’body thought he was out spying on Malone.”

  “Speak of the devil—here he comes.” James got to his feet and put on his hat. “Malone’s got the damnedest habit of showing up where he’s not wanted.”

  “Chip’s all right. He ain’t never done ya no harm.” Wiley folded his pocketknife and put it in his pocket.

  “Yeah? What about last spring when he put a jam on the upper river so his logs could hit the fast water first?”

  “That was business. Ya’d a done the same if’n ya’d thought of it.”

  “How could we do that when we’re up river?” James glared at Wiley and the old man glared back.

  Ben stood and leaned on the spade he had been using to dig the grave and listened to Wiley and James argue. Only men who were fond of each other would be so blunt. It had been that way between him and Tom Caffery.